Alveley (St. Mary)

ALVELEY (St. Mary), a parish, partly within the liberty of the borough of Bridgnorth, but chiefly in the hundred of Stottesden, union of Bridgnorth, S. division of Salop, 6½ miles (S. S. E.) from Bridgnorth; containing, with Nordley-Regis township, and Romsley liberty in the borough of Bridgnorth, 1062 inhabitants. It comprises 6435 acres, including Romsley, which contributes one-third towards the churchrate, but is independent of the parish in other respects: the road from Shrewsbury to Cheltenham passes through it, and the river Severn is its boundary on one side. There are some works for the manufacture of iron, and several quarries, the stone of which is used for building, and made into wheels for mills and manufactures. Alveley was one of the five prebends in the royal free chapel of the castle of Bridgnorth, valued, in the reign of Henry III., at sixty marks, and is still reputed and rated as such in the Office of the First Fruits. The living is a perpetual curacy, recently endowed with £300, the donations of various persons, which were placed in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, by whom, in consideration thereof, the net income, previously £90, was augmented £17; patron and impropriator, Col. Gatacre. The church is a fine edifice, a mixture of Norman and early English architecture, with a curious old painted window in the clerestory, supposed to have been built in the time of the Tudors. In the south wall of the chancel, three fine early English sedilia and a piscina were recently discovered, in a mutilated state, by the incumbent; they were concealed by plaster: the patron has had them restored. There is a private chapel attached to Coton Hall, in the parish. A free school was endowed in 1616, by John Grove, to whom is a monument of brass on the floor of the chancel of the church, bearing the date 1616; the master resides in a house rent-free, and receives £20 per annum. Five "decayed labourers" receive £6 each, annually, from property bequeathed by the same individual. Thomas Grove, his son, also conveyed some land to trustees, for "the poorest of the poor people," the proceeds to be distributed yearly.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, 7th edition, published in 1848.